


Memories

by oOAchilliaOo



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 07:38:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16551689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oOAchilliaOo/pseuds/oOAchilliaOo
Summary: This day stirs up a lot of memories for her. Some are good, some are less good and some are bad. But traditions are to be respected and even though it hurts there's only one place she can go.





	Memories

All things considered, there were a lot of places she could be today. At last count, there were seven, no,  _eight_  memorials, a smattering of gravesites across the universe and one very special place on the Citadel.

But somehow it felt…  _wrong_  to be anywhere else but here. Even if here itself felt wrong.

She set the two, just  _two_ , glasses she was carrying down on the mess hall table, opened the bottle beside them, poured two measures and waited. Memories of this place, this day, this anniversary, threatened to overwhelm her, just as they always did.

The first time, when all of them (bar four notable exceptions) paused in their work just long enough to raise a toast after the sudden realisation that  _it had been a whole year._  Thank the goddess, Chakwas had somehow managed to keep that bottle of Serrice Ice intact. She said she’d bought it for her and Shepard to share. That she’d tried to pull her away for a quiet drink or two but Shepard, with all her characteristic confidence, had told her to keep it for their victory.

The victory she couldn’t know she wouldn’t see.

That year had been decidedly melancholy; Shepard’s loss so keenly felt alongside so many countless others. Too many. They hadn’t even been sure that they would make it off the planet, let alone halfway across the universe to Earth and the Citadel. The hopelessness had been a crushing weight that they’d only managed to bear by leaning on each other.

She remembered the first universal celebration. The parade, the hoopla, because by that time the galaxy had been repaired just enough and just enough years had passed that the day could be reframed as a celebration, as a victory. The horrors were already fading in a way that was hauntingly similar to the way she’d romanticised chasing Saren after Shepard’s more temporary death.

On that day, they’d stood shoulder to shoulder on some stage while various politicians and military figures had droned on. Flags had waved, people had cheered and they’d slipped away to come here and raise an altogether more solemn glass to Shepard, and Ash, and Thane, and Mordin, and Anderson, and EDI.  

Eventually though, eventually, it had become a celebration for them too. As they’d drifted further and further apart, retreating into their own lives, helping in whatever way they could but never quite leaving the badge of ‘Normandy Crew’ behind, this day had become a way to keep in touch.

No matter what else was happening, everyone came together for this one day.

One year, she couldn’t now remember which, Miranda had baked. The cake had been a little lopsided and there were parts where the frosting showed through the glaze but it was rendered in perfect shades of N7 red and Alliance blue and it had tasted delicious.

The year after, Kaidan and Vega had cooked. The year after that, she and Samara had clubbed together to buy those fancy little cakes from Thessia’s most famous bakery. The one that had only just re-opened that year. And after that it became a party. Everyone brought food, everyone drank, everyone  _celebrated_  except, perhaps, for the two minutes they spent in silence along with the rest of the galaxy.

Two minutes for everyone to remember  _her._

She remembered the year they decommissioned the Normandy. They had all assumed that their meeting place would be taken away, destroyed even. None of them wanted to join the crowds at the memorials, especially her grave site. Even so long later, their grief, their  _celebration_ , remained private, not public. They’d been discussing the best place to move to when the ensuing news had come in.

Luckily, it turned out that while the Normandy SR2 might have been too outdated to serve, she was  _far_  too famous to scrap.

Instead, she became a museum.

They’d been together for a private tour before the museum opened to the public. It had been an… uncomfortable experience. Empty. Silent. Impersonal. Little holographic displays all over the ship proudly proclaiming:  _‘In this room, Commander Shepard single handily brokered peace between the Krogan and Turian’_ or  _‘Commander Shepard’s terminal. Who knows what life-saving, war-critical messages were sent from this very console?’_ They were… out of place, wrong and far too cheery.

When they went down a deck, to the place where they  _always_ met that was wrong too.

They’d moved the memorial wall.

In ‘anticipation of crowds’.

None of them really liked having it  _right there_  in the mess when they were trying to celebrate, but, as the years passed it became normal. Just as the placards and the ticket booth outside became normal. Gradually, it became harder and harder to remember how different the Normandy had been when she’d been alive.

She remembered the first year Joker had to be wheeled in, his legs no longer capable of supporting him, his health such that he couldn’t even  _teach_ flying anymore. He’d seemed… lonely, quieter.

Almost as if he knew he wouldn’t live long enough to see Tali arrive without a suit.

There had been…  _good_  news too, in the years that followed. Children, marriages, little ways in which they’d helped the galaxy repair but… a lot of it faded in the face of their dwindling numbers. Those who lived still came every year, even when their health was such that they couldn’t walk, couldn’t travel without help, or  _shouldn’t even travel at all,_  they came. They drank, they talked, they remembered.

But as the years passed, there were fewer, and fewer…

She remembered the year that there had been no humans left among them. These days that would be a strange thing to notice, but that first year. Perhaps it was because the Normandy had been a Human Alliance ship, or perhaps because Shepard had been human, but it felt… odd to be aboard ship without any of them.

With each passing, another name was added to the memorial wall. They hadn’t died in battle, a fact that she was certain made Shepard smile in the beyond, but they were still crew and they belonged on the wall.

That wall was looking pretty full these days.

A glance at her omni-tool told her he was late. Nothing to worry about; probably one of the clans creating a problem. She knew he’d be here. He always made it in time.

Ignoring the aching in her joints, the pain in her bones, she activated the holo-emitter at the centre of the mess table, tuning the channel to the Alliance News Network. Still going, so long later, and she was thankful of it.

The familiar view of Shepard Memorial Plaza appeared, her eyes tracing the contours of the statue before running across the much larger list of names. Wreaths were already laid at the base of the memorial, and she watched as the Salarian councillor lays one more.

Briefly the camera panned out, scanning the crowd. There were fewer people than last year, but that wasn’t surprising. Every year, the number of spectators diminished a little, along with the fading memories. The two minutes’ silence was still upheld, and probably always would be, but there had been other wars since, more immediate losses for people to consider. She was willing to bet that these days most people only gave a cursory thought to the millions who’d died to save them so long ago.

And it had been  _so long ago_.

For most of the galaxy it was now considered ancient history. People even  _studied_  it. People like the museum curator. The one who’d received the instructions from his predecessor who’d received them from her predecessor. Instructions that told them that, for as long as somebody arrived, the Normandy museum would be closed for a ‘private function’ on this day.

In the absence of all other noise, the sound of boots on the grating was almost comically loud. She smiled to herself, recognising his tread.

“You’re late,” she said, just as he rounded the corner. He grunted in return, which was only appropriate, throwing himself into the seat opposite her. The ancient chair creaked slightly under his weight and she wondered if they’d be blamed for breaking this ‘relic’.

“How are the children?” she asked, sliding his glass towards him.

“Loud,” he said, accepting the glass and grinning in a way that twisted the scar bisecting his face into something ugly. She didn’t mind, she’d gotten used to it.

She was about to say something else when the bell tolled on the holo-emitter.

Time.

“To the Normandy,” she said, raising her glass. They both knew she really meant ‘to her crew’.

Another toll.

“And to the greatest battlemaster in the universe.”

He clinked his glass against hers as the third bell tolled.

On the fourth bell they swallowed their drinks, and on the fifth they bowed their heads.

She thought about the first time she’d stepped aboard the SR1, shaken from the first real battle she’d ever experienced. She thought about Sovereign’s defeat, about the SR2, becoming the Shadow Broker, building the Crucible, facing the Reapers. She thought of a hundred moments in between; talking, laughing¸ _living._ She thought of all the years after the war, all the times they met in this room.

She thought about all the times she could remember, until finally the last bell sounded, and the moment passed.

Grunt didn’t stay long afterwards. He never did. They didn’t really have that much in common besides their shared history anyway.

She decided to stay, just for a little while. To soak in the moment, as it were.

It wasn’t long before the eerie quietness of the ship had her eyelids drooping…

Moments later, she wakes slowly, to the sound of chattering voices. Ones that seem familiar and yet… she can’t quite place them. She blinks heavy eyes open, catching sight of a shock of red hair before a face swims into view.

“Sh… Shepard?” she breathes.

Shepard grins, reaching out a hand and hauling her to her feet.

“About time you joined the party.”

As the Commander pulls her into a hug, she sees that she’s still in the mess hall. Only now it looks  _right._  The memorial wall isn’t looming over the tables, there are no placards anywhere, no holograms. Just  _people_. Everyone talking, laughing, drinking, just like they used to. Goddess, had Kaidan ever looked so  _young?_ Joker standing on his own two feet, his arm looped around EDI while he talks to a raven-haired Miranda. She barely even recognises Wrex, he can’t be more than a hundred years old and most of his scars are missing.

It’s all she can do not to weep.

“Welcome home, Liara.” Shepard says softly.

And she is. After all these years, she’s  _finally_  home. 

“Thank you, Shepard.”

 


End file.
